


Heart on a Canvas

by Dancyon



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Doctor Aaron Minyard, F/M, Gen, M/M, Matt and Neil are roommates, Torture, andrew is also a fool, art thief neil, artist Neil, as a form of torture, con man neil, fbi agent andrew, guys the torture tag is real so read at your own risk, neil deserves better from life, neil is a fool, neil paints on andrew, one-sided riko/neil, probably not worse than canon, they all lie, they're too dumb to realize they're in love, tho there is some drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 09:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancyon/pseuds/Dancyon
Summary: Neil is a struggling artist, trying to make a name for himself through his violent, dark paintings. He would happily spend the rest of his life in his studio, covered in paint, if it weren't for how badly his art is selling, making it hard to make ends meet. He thought he wouldn't have to rely on his side job anymore as Abram Hatford, his con-man persona, being commissioned by rich people to steal artifacts from other rich people.What he wasn't expecting was to be contacted by one Andrew Minyard, rich and without mercy, to get revenge on Riko Moriyama for breaking Kevin Day's (Minyard's protegee) painting hand.Getting close enough to Riko to find his weaknesses is a challenge and Neil is starting to think he bit off more than he could chew.Not to mention the fact that Andrew has been hiding truths that could mean the end for Neil.





	1. Promises on my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Heyaaa this is my piece for the [aftgbigbang](http://aftgbigbang.tumblr.com)
> 
> Endless love to my artist [kym](https://my-mind-inspiration.tumblr.com) and to my amazing beta [kit](http://metaphoricallytheworst.tumblr.com) because without them this would not be here so go send them much love guys, they deserve it. 
> 
> If you want more stories by me [here](http://dancyon.tumblr.com/tagged/mine) is my tumblr writing tag

The room was green and yellow, sun and spring-young leaves tracing waves and life on the walls as people looked at his creation. _I like it, I don’t like it, He’s young, new, fresh, young young young. Not enough._

Neil was sipping his cider, hiding in the shadows in a corner of the room. He was safely tucked away in a world of greys and blacks, quiet and unassuming, where he could watch without being seen all the people judging his art and his soul on a wall.

He scoffed at most of them, their eyes trained towards the flashier paintings, the ones with color, the provocative ones clearly meant to hurt people or shock them into feeling ashamed and baffled, angry.

He could hear their voices, like long dead nightmares in his ears, his pulse racing and his fingers trembling with the fear of what he’d done, his art, his very essence, a bright lighthouse in the dark.

_He doesn’t have anything else to offer._

Their noses upturned and their disregard obvious and infuriating, they were trying to solve a broken puzzle. They were trying to put together lost pieces that Neil was still holding close to his heart.

He knew he should have expected their dismissive and cold attitude, but it still shocked him, somehow. He’d bared more of himself than he had ever revealed in his entire life, and the only people who could help him had laughed or scoffed at what they’d seen, at the reds and yellows and blinding purples or flesh and bone.

He knew he should have expected it, but it somehow still hurt, deep down where no one could see him.

The only person who seemed to be genuinely interested in what Neil was screaming was Renee Walker, Reynold’s vibrant bodyguard. Her hair was just as colorful as the first time Neil had seen her, and her smile just as kind, death hiding behind her eyes and her small body always one step away from coiling for a fight if necessary.

Downing his fourth cider and reaching for a glass of champagne, he made his way through his own exhibit, narrowing his eyes in frustration at every word and smirking in satisfaction every time someone realized that the paintings he had chosen had been meticulously selected to offend them all personally as a society.

If he was going to go down for this, at least his fall would be as loud as a giant’s. They were never going to forget him.The temptation to instigate discord and rattle the public had been strong enough that he had packed everything that would hurt them and shipped them all here. The twisted people in his paintings were real and ugly. They were shown for what they were: hurtful, cruel, flawed, real and violent.

Neil was ready to declare humanity a lost cause when he saw someone standing in front of the one painting he was sure would never interest any of the expensive people in there. Too small, too ugly, too dark and unclear, colors laid down on the canvas like an agitated, anxious wave, like a sentence.

The man was short, perhaps shorter than Neil himself in all his 5’3 glory and dressed like he had enough money to own the gallery and all the people in it. He was staring at the painting with a black face, following the lines of the different shades of dark greys and dark blues in silence.

Neil was, against all odds, intrigued by this man who looked like money and smelled like blood in the water.

He smirked at the challenge and step forward to interact with someone who could potentially be interested enough in his real work to resolve his current atrocious financial situation. And maybe give him hope for a future where he didn’t fall.

Neil approached him cautiously, his champagne still untouched. “Interesting taste.”

The man didn’t even twitch, and Neil’s eyes narrowed. He had been quiet enough as he got closer that only a trained ear would have been able to detect him.

“It is different.”

“I suppose it is. This is my first exhibit, I am hoping I can present more than what I had to offer today.” Neil didn’t breathe as he waited for his offer to sink in. _Please catch on._

The man finally looked at Neil fully. “More of pieces like this one?” He asked in a bored voice.

“I am surprised this one caught your attention. There is much else to see,” Neil tentatively offered.

“Yes. Lies and threats. This might be ugly, but at least it is a truth.”

Neil bristled at the obvious insult, jaw clenching at the attack on the only piece of himself he had given up today. “Art is not always meant to be beautiful, you know? Sometimes ugly things can mean a lot.”

A pensive hum was his only response, and Neil had the distinct impression that he was being toyed with and measured on a level he wasn’t yet sure about.

Suddenly uncomfortable, he shifted from one foot to the other. “The least you could do after insulting my art is tell me who you are, since you seem to know who I am.”

The man barely turned his head towards him, still looking at the painting with some strange sort of fascination. “I am Andrew Minyard. And you are Neil Josten. The star of today. Or maybe the Icarus.”

“You don’t have to look at it if you don’t like my art.”

“And that’s exactly why you failed today. Art is not meant to be beautiful, it’s meant to hurt. You tried to make it ugly without making it hurt.”

Neil narrowed his eyes. “Art is everything I decide to make it. I’m the artist.”

Minyard turned his emotionless hazel eyes away from Neil’s painting, staring at Neil with something that could be mistaken for contempt from anyone who could actually feel any emotion. “Are you? Then prove it. Show me _you_ , show me what hurts you and what makes you feel. Put yourself on the stand before you drag other people through the mud.”

He left with those last words, not sparing Neil a second glance.

 

After what had transpired the night before, Neil was not surprised or even disappointed when he woke up to his name dragged through the mud by the critics. _“Josten has no concept of line or combination of colors.”_ Read one article. _“His art is childlike and angry, there is no finesse and no refined talent.”_ And his personal favorite: _“His art looks like the spawn of a toddler throwing a tantrum after he was handed a crayon.”_

If he hadn’t been in dire need of money to be able to pay his half of the rent for the apartment he was sharing with Matt, he would have laughed.

As it was, the critics tearing him apart and once more destroying his career meant that no one was interested in commissioning him.

Matt had been Neil’s number one fan since they had first become roommates, back after Neil had found himself with a visual arts degree, a dead homicidal father and no job to support himself. He had supported and encouraged him to keep painting, and he had cheered him on every time he had gotten close to having his own gallery.

He was not going to be late on rent again. Not after Dan, Matt’s girlfriend, had gone to the trouble of contacting her old college roommate Allison Reynolds to offer Neil a chance to let the world know his name.

By the time he managed to talk himself down from his vicious circle of self-pity, he finally got the call he had been waiting for all morning. He hadn’t saved Reynolds’ number in his phone, but he still had it memorized, those ten numbers flashing like a challenge and a warning on the screen.

He let it ring three times, a sick sort of satisfaction filling him at the thought that Allison Reynolds was being kept waiting by a nobody. Before the call could cut off, he finally picked up. “Miss Reynolds, I wasn’t expecting your call.” He lied.

“Of course you weren’t.” Her sugar sweet tone would have made him shiver if he hadn’t been raised by the Butcher and by Mary Hatford. “Be that as it may, you will meet me at the coffee shop around the corner of your building.”

“Oh? Will I now?”

“You will.” Her tone was as definitive as the sound of the phone hanged up on his face.

The coffee shop was small and quiet. Not a place someone like Reynolds would like, Neil figured. He didn’t know if the choice had been on his behalf or to keep him guessing.

He ordered black tea without waiting for his ‘employer’, sipping it calmly and hiding a smirk behind his cup when she finally showed up in sunglasses despite the lack of sun and a tank top despite the lack of warmth. With her hair artfully collected in a loose bun, she looked every inch the way she was supposed to look, if it weren’t for the black nails and the little snakes tattooed on her wrists.

She didn’t even look at Neil as she placed her order of something Neil couldn’t even pronounce, dismissing his presence as though he were a bug. Calmly, she went on to slowly but challengingly pack away half of her drink as she stared at Neil with a bored expression. Neil found himself intrigued, despite himself. He wasn’t there to make friends, he could barely keep up with the few he had somehow found himself with, like Dan and Matt, but there was more to Allison Reynolds than met the eye. Beyond her expensive sunglasses and her perfect lipstick there was a spine of steel and calculating eyes. Neil recognized an affine soul when he saw one.

“So,” she finally started with a cold smile and serious eyes, “that was interesting.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, that was a shit storm.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

Going back to his almost empty cup, Neil tried to backtrack to the night before to figure out what he had missed but came up blank. “If you say so. It is your money, after all.”

Reynolds’ smile became slightly more genuine. “Why yes it is, thank you for noticing that. And I suppose my parents will be oh so upset I lost so much money of what they gave me yesterday, won’t they? But hey, shit happens, right?”

At the sight of her fierce grin, Neil had the distinct impression he’d just been had, and that he’d been hired with this exact outcome in mind. “If you wanted this to go badly,” he started carefully, “why do it at all?”

“I was bored.” She answered. “I was bored, and I wanted to see what we could expect from someone like the elusive Neil Josten. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

Her eyes narrowed in calculation and Neil hid as much of his face as he could under the empty cup of tea still in his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you think you can try to fool me? The person who is basically paying for your life right now? That’s sweet but unnecessary, as long as you work for me you’re my bitch.”

“Fine then.” He finally snapped. “Yes, I did do that on purpose. I was looking forward to making all those people fall from their high horses. I was just waiting for the chance to call them all out on their hypocrisy. If they got hurt by it, it’s only because something hit home.”

Allison leaned back against her chair and laughed, ugly and true. “We will get along splendidly, Neil Josten.”

The air leaving his lungs made him feel lightheaded and terrifyingly hopeful. “You mean…?”

Back to her unconcerned mask, Allison only nodded, finishing her sugary monster drink and lowering her sunglasses from her hair back to her eyes.

“Working with you should be interesting in the future. Be sure not to disappoint me, I get bored often and easily.”

Still high on the realization that his future was still right there, so close that he could already feel it on the tip of his tongue, Neil nodded back, getting up as well.

It wasn’t over yet.

 

In the days that followed, Neil quickly realized that Reynolds’ promise would not pay him back in time to meet the month’s deadline.

He had hoped that after the Gallery, he wouldn’t have to go back to his less ‘legal’ activities, unwilling to put his now rising name on the line. Stuck now between a rock and a hard place, he realized that he might have no other choice.

The envelope in front of him was challenging him, laughing at him and reminding him that he needed the money right now to pay Matt’s rent due in two days.

He had reached for the burner phone inside three times already, only to put it back inside with a shudder, pacing up and down his room and trying to make a decision. Finally, his eyes fell on the calendar on the wall by his bed, at the date two days away circled in bright red. Closing his eyes, he settled down on the bed with a sigh, taking his head between his hands and trying to calm his racing heart.

He had to do this. He reached for the phone, calling the number on speed dial. “Mr. Kirkoff? This is Abram talking. You said you had a job for me.”

That night Mr. Coslow’s favorite Degas painting disappeared, and everyone swore up and down the street that a ghost with sharp knives had cut it from the wall itself and destroyed it in a blaze of glory. Mr. Coslow was sure that Mr. Kirkoff, his biggest rival, had somehow done it, but the police never found any evidence to support the claim. 

The morning after, Neil counted his money and knocked on Matt’s door to pay his rent and started mentally calculating how much money he would still need to pay his share of the bills.

The last person he was expecting to hear from in those days of desperately looking for odd jobs, was Andrew Minyard, the rich businessman he had clashed with back at Reynolds’ gallery.

Minyard was rich, had an eye for detail and was, crazily enough, somehow interested in Neil’s angry, vicious art. The same art he had torn apart and criticized a few days earlier.

Neil had just come back from stealing someone’s prized Roman Bust when he’d received the call from Andrew Minyard himself instead of one of his aids. He wasn’t about to turn him down because of his hurt pride when he jeopardized his name and his future as a free man on a weekly basis at least.

He had been called into Minyard’s office downtown, the building towering over the city. The room he had been invited to was elegant and extravagant, somehow not something he figured Minyard would be comfortable with. He wondered if he had misjudged the man. Then the other impassively led him inside and carelessly sat down to pour himself a glass of whiskey that was probably more expensive than Neil’s rent.

Neil stared at the other as he sat down on an armchair that was definitely too luxurious for his cheap pants, shaking his head when Minyard offered him whiskey after filling up his own glass with more booze than socially acceptable.

Neil would have jumped at the chance to exploit someone’s weakness when it was so openly admitted, the drink in Minyard's hand drawing his attention. His mother’s voice whispered in his ear that a drunk man was a dead man, and the lessons he’d learned back when he was young and growing up in this kind of luxury were still as vivid as ever in his mind even after fifteen years.

He had a feeling that Andrew Minyard was not so careless as to show his hand so soon though, the layers of his indifference a tempting mask for a con-man like Neil to fall into.

“An artist that does not drink his problems away. A novelty. That might be why you do not have any success, after all.”

Neil went still, remembering their banter at the gallery and how Andrew had torn his art apart before the critics had a chance to dig their claws in. “As I said last time, you do not have to look at my art if you do not like it. I have better things to do than make sure you are having fun, like making money.”

Andrew’s blank eyes focused on him with careful precision and a hint of masked interest. “That is why you are here, Abram.”

Neil’s blood froze in his veins as he forced his face to remain blank. “That’s not my name.”

“Isn’t it? How curious then that my very esteemed friends gave me this name when I asked about someone who could help me out with the very particular kind of help I am looking for.”

Neil could almost feel the relief on his tongue. A client. Minyard was just a client, not one of his father’s people. “I don’t usually do business in person.”

“Understandable. But you see, we already know each other, so that takes care of half the problem, doesn’t it.”

“I don’t see how.” Neil scowled, slightly calmer and able to breathe again. “You could have just called. I specifically make sure people know that they can’t contact me in person. I need to protect myself and my assets.”

Minyard dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “That’s unacceptable. I need you to run a long con so I need to be in contact with you more often. Besides, your stunt with Mr. Coslow made quite a storm in your circles I hear.”

Neil narrowed his eyes and wondered who exactly had told Minyard about Abram. His clients all knew to only give his contact to people they trusted down to the bone. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Minyard, but I don’t discuss clients with other clients.”

“Of course you don’t. In case you might need to beg from hand you stole from, right?”

Minyard looked just as blank as he always did, but Neil could feel the contempt rolling off him in waves.

Frustrated, Neil got up, his teeth hurting from how hard he was clenching them. “Are you going to keep insulting me for the rest of the time we will be working together? Because if I am here right now it means that you desperately need me, and my services do not come cheap.”

Minyard would have never relied on someone like Neil if he hadn’t been at the end of his rope, it was clear how much he really didn’t like thieves and con-men, and Neil was all that and a liar on top of that. If he was doing this at all, it meant that he felt he had no choice.

Minyard’s blank expression flickered with a flash of interest before returning to its disinterested state. “A little truth. I see we’re feeling hopeful about this. That’s good, because you’ll learn to do what I say sooner or later if you want me to pay you as much as I can pay you.”

Neil bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood, the promise of money stopping the ‘fuck you’ from leaving his mouth. “You haven’t told me what the job is yet.”

“I haven’t, no.” The other man kept his stare on Neil as he tapped a finger against his glass. “You understand that this is entirely confidential, don’t you? I would expect someone like you know have an appreciation for secrets to be kept.”

“Someone like me,” Neil started with fake politeness, “understands perfectly, thank you very much.”

“That’s great.” Minyard nodded back just as politely. “Because Riko Moriyama broke Kevin Day’s left hand and I need you to get close enough to him to be able to steal the thing he will miss the most.”

Neil sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re lying.”

Minyard raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not the liar in this room.”

But Neil wasn’t listening to him, he was just shaking his head in shock. “No way. There is no way that’s true.”

“I assure you, it is.”

“But Kevin Day! His left hand! He will never paint again. He’s been away from the public eye lately but we all thought he was just taking a break. How could this happen?”

“I see we have ourselves a fan,” Minyard mocked.

“Don’t joke. That’s Kevin Day, his art is legendary. He’s the son of _The_ Kayleigh Day! Her paintings inspired my color combinations for years.”

“Yes, quite tragic,” Minyard deadpanned. “Now, do you want to know about the job?”

Neil managed not to glare too much as he nodded, and Minyard went on to explain how he would have to get close to Riko Moriyama, close enough to be invited to his personal house and close enough to figure out what he held dear the most.

Minyard turned out to be unforgiving and just as vicious and cold as he had first appeared, and Neil wasn’t disappointed, he was more surprised by the fact that the other had been genuine in his feelings the whole time. It was refreshing to meet someone who gave away truths like death sentences, and he was starting to realize that most of his contempt towards Neil was not because of his less legal activities, but because he gave out lies like promises, and to someone like Andrew Minyard, who breathed and spoke and lived without any falsity, that was unforgivable.

 

Like Minyard had promised, he heard from him two days later as he was trying to finish his latest painting. Colors covered his fingers and his face, his orange bandana holding his loose curls out of his eyes, shades of red and orange marring the canvas like an open wound and his mind distracting him, filled with the other man’s voice as he thought about what it might be like to throw his flaws in his art and make it shout.

He was staring at the screaming, bleeding red mouth his hand had just created without his volition, upturned corners and dripping paint, when his surprisingly charged phone started ringing, jerking him out of his stupor. ‘Short Asshole’ flashed on the small screen as though he’d been summoned. 

Andrew spoke the same way he presented himself. Sharp and to the point. “Do you have adequate clothing for a formal event?”

Neil scowled, even though the other couldn’t see him, putting as much contempt behind his words as possible to make sure Andrew heard it even though he wasn’t present to witness it. “Yes. You saw it at the gallery. You know, where we met.”

The pause that followed shouldn’t have been as insulting as it was. “That is not proper clothing for a formal event, Josten.” He paused again, as though considering something. 

“You will receive a package in the mail tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon you will show up at the Gala you have been invited to. You know what your job is.” With that, he hung up before Neil could answer or curse him out. 

Neil did receive a package in the mail, and the clothes inside looked just as expensive as Andrew had promised they would be, soft navy fabric hugging his body in the tailored way he remembered from his life before, back in Baltimore. He thought he’d traded satin and flashy costumes for a happier life. He had never expected to find himself covered in niceties again.

The package also contained a message that he burned soon after, listing the address of the Charity Event he was going to go to. With clothes and transportation that Andrew’s money was paying for and important information about Riko Moriyama that he would need to survive, he got ready to play this game that Minyard had dragged him into.

Neil didn’t know much about cars, but even he could recognize that the driver Andrew had sent for him came with a car meant to impress. It would make Neil stand out like a sore thumb. He would be very hard to forget, even by someone like Riko Moriyama.

Breathing deeply to calm his shaking hands, his mother’s voice screaming in his head to _run run run_ , he carefully got out of the monstrous black car that had turned his entrance into a show and he entered the round shaped building with his head held high, his eyes keeping careful watch for Moriyama’s face among the crowd.

As he took notice of the people surrounding him and the clothes they were wearing that were probably more expensive than Neil’s life, he was suddenly very glad that Andrew had chosen his dark grey dress pants and his light blue, sleek shirt. He looked original, different from everyone else who was dressed in black (hard to forget), but he looked just as expensive.

Finally, he found the man he was looking for sitting by the bar on the other side of the stage where some old rich person was talking about something that Neil, as neither old nor rich, had no interest in. Neil slowly made his way to the bar, stopping on the way there to talk to different people so as not to appear in a rush, mindful of how, in this place most of all, appearances were everything.

He shook hands with as many people as he could, and he smiled hard enough that he could feel the itch in his fingertips begging him to tear the smile from his face, cut it out like something gone bad and rotten, his walls paper thin and crumbling under the weight of the biggest con he had ever had to play.

He could feel eyes on his back and on the cut on his face that they called smile by the time he sat down close enough to Moriyama to catch his attention but far enough to make it seem artfully casual.

The other was busy talking to someone who was sitting stiffly enough to be a bodyguard. Neil had already pinpointed all the exits and the most dangerous people in the room in case he would need to flee, old habits hard to die and his mother’s lessons a burning fire against his clenched teeth.

Neil made small conversation with the bartender and the person to his left, ignoring the other man entirely and waiting, waiting, waiting…

“Do I know you from somewhere?” _Hook line and sinker._

Neil turned around in confusion, taking in as much as he could of Riko Moriyama, from his primly pressed dark suit to the cold curve of his lips. He looked like someone who had never been taught to accept a no.

“Not unless you have any knowledge of very small local artists like myself, I’m afraid.”

With a dazzling smile, he offered his hand, letting Moriyama hold onto it a moment longer than necessary before politely taking it back.

The other’s dark eyes sparkled in appraisal. “Yes, you could say so. I have an… interest, we could call it. For young artists such as yourself, I believe.” He paused for a moment, furrowing his brows. “Ah. I remember now. You are Neil Josten. Your Gallery caused quite a stir a couple of weeks ago. You must have a very strong personality to have the courage to pull that off. Not many artists would have dared.”

Neil inclined his head in thought. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. The way I see it, considering how hard it was to be able to share my art a first time, a second time is close to impossible. Wouldn’t you also want to make the most of your one real chance, Mr…?”

He let the question hang in the air, and he wasn’t disappointed by the prompt response. “Riko Moriyama. And that is a very interesting opinion, Mr Josten.”

Neil raised his eyebrows in a shocked expression when he heard the name, the other’s smile turning from curious to pleased.

“Riko Moriyama as in one of the most famous patrons in the East Coast? I have heard of you. I don’t think there is a single artist who has not heard of you.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Would you let me buy you a drink? I believe it to be a public service, helping young artists by giving them the tools they need to express their genius and share with us their art. After all, we all need pretty things to be happy.”

Neil nodded with a polite smile, keeping the burning fire inside his chest quiet as Moriyama’s hand slid down his shoulders to rest against the small of his back. It was just a job. A long, ugly, uncomfortable job.

He hoped he could get out of this with all the pieces of himself still there.  
(He hoped he wouldn’t break too much.)

 

Neil met Riko again a week after that. The man had organized an outdoors showing where young artists were invited to bring one piece that they wanted to show the world. The luckiest ones might even be able to find a patronage if they managed to catch the attention of the right person.

Minyard’s voice had haunted Neil’s dreams every night since that first Gallery, his challenge a burning mark on Neil’s brain. He told himself that he was only doing it to prove that he wasn’t a coward, and that his art was good. He told himself a lot of things as he unveiled the Valkyrie, a bleeding, screaming, dying personification of his mother, dark hair clotted in red and mouth open in a silent rage. Her eyes were just as black and wide as they’d been when she took her last shivering breath.

Neil had smoked through two packs of cigarettes to stop the shaking in his hands and the tremor in his limbs, the horror and the shame of what he had done clinging to his skin like smoke. In the end, it had served his purpose. Riko had been impressed and most of all interested, both in his art (which was good) and in Neil as a person (which was even better and exactly what they wanted to achieve).

Two days later, Riko Moriyama called Neil on his private phone.

Guardedly, Neil responded to Riko’s greeting with a ‘How do you know my number?’

Riko’s laugh was light and victorious. “Oh, I can find anything if I want to.”

With his tongue stuck and his heart beating furiously inside his chest, it took Neil a couple of tries before he managed to find his voice again. “I suppose you found out lots of interesting things about me.”

“A few. Why don’t we meet up tomorrow so we can discuss what I found, Nathaniel?”

Neil would have rather drank pure acid than beg, but the words burned just as bad as a fire in his throat when his panicked breathing slowed down. “Riko. Don’t. _Please_ .”

“Oh, there’s no need to say please, darling. This is just my incentive. You will behave, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I couldn’t hear that, Nathaniel, a little louder.”

“Yes, I will behave.”

“That’s good.” Riko’s laugh would haunt him for years, a constant reminder of how much he was giving up in that moment. “I’m glad we both understand that I’m the one who makes the rules here. If you double cross me, Nathaniel? You won’t like the consequences. Meet me at the park next to your friend’s apartment.” With that, he hung up the call.

The park next to where Neil and Matt lived was a dog park. Neil supposed that Riko had chosen that because killing puppies was slightly less monstrous than killing children and he didn’t want to lose his temper at all the yelling and the noise, ending up seriously maiming someone. Neil didn’t like children either, but he felt bad for the dogs and their owners in case Riko got mad at him.

When the other man showed up, fashionably late or whatever the rich called it, he set down on the same stool Neil was sitting at, close enough that Neil could feel the heat of his body.

He forced himself not to stab the other through the eye with the straw of the drink in his hand, something sweet and horrible that Andrew had gotten when they’d met up the day before to talk about Neil’s monthly bills and how Andrew would be taking care of them for the foreseeable future.

Riko crossed his legs, a sharp grin cutting his face in half. “Nathaniel. It took me much too long to remember you. I don’t know how I could forget you in the first place. How’s your mother?”

“Quite dead, like I presume you already know.”

Riko raised an eyebrow, amused at Neil’s loss of temper. “You haven’t changed much, you’re still a brat.” Leaning back against the bench, staring at the summer sky and at the clouds chasing each other and changing shapes. “Remember that summer? It was so hot we thought our skin would melt off, but you were more than happy to get out of your house.”

“My parents were more than happy to have me out of the house too.” His mother took every chance she had to keep him away from those walls in Baltimore. His father just wanted him out of the way while he run his business.

“Is Kevin still as stuck up as he was back then?” Neil asked, tasting the waters and trying to figure out where everyone stood (most of all Riko, who was directly responsible for Kevin leaving the public eye) on the whole ‘Kevin Day is gone’ thing.

Riko’s eyes narrowed, a dark shadow crossing his face. “Me and Kevin don’t really talk anymore. It is not how it used to be. Back then, me and Kevin had never had another friend to play with before you.”

“I could tell.” Neil laughed, letting the subject drop. “You were really bossy back then too. You always wanted to choose what we did and when we went out.”

“Of course I did! You spent all your time drawing at my table, with my colors and my blank papers. You and Kevin.”

“You had more colors than I was allowed at my house. You had so many.” Neil softly explained, lost in memories of a summer so far away it looked like a dream.

“And I was happy to give them to you. It made you happy”

“It did. I felt like a grown-up artist. Like my mother.”

“And it made you look like your mother too, covered in paint and in my colors. Your father didn’t seem to like that much”

Neil smelled Riko’s inferiority complex and his need to feel powerful from a mile away. Slowly, artfully, he made his shoulders slump and his fingers tap an uneven rhythm on his thigh. “No, he didn’t.” he whispered back. “He hated when she painted something. Eventually, she stopped painting all together. She only ever wanted to be allowed to put her heart on a canvas.”

Riko latched on like a moth to a flame. “And you want the same, don’t you?

Neil stared straight ahead, toeing the grass in front of him with his sneaker. “There is nothing I want more.” And for maybe the first time since Minyard had talked to him, tearing down his lies and his walls, he felt like he was saying the absolute, entire truth in front of a man he very much disliked. Irrationally, he thought that he should have told Andrew this first. He’d been the one to demand something real from Neil.

 

Andrew’s real house was not how he had imagined it. It was not the calculated show of wealth he had been expecting after seeing his office, nor did it have the obvious and nauseating expensiveness he had come to know growing up at his father’s house and, later on, stealing from the same kind of people Minyard belonged with. 

It was so different from the flashy taste of the room he had first been invited to, weeks earlier, as Andrew set on his couch and offered him whiskey he probably already knew Neil would refuse.

It was a practical, three bedroom apartment with dark tones and clean, neat surfaces. At least, it looked like the home of a control freak, which Andrew definitely was, and everything made sense once more in Neil’s world.

Andrew looked very different when surrounded by the walls of his own home. Not unguarded, definitely not softer, but different. Less official; less careful about what he presented to anyone who might be watching, less concerned by what his social standard demanded.

They set at the kitchen table, where Andrew offered Neil some tea after fixing his own coffee with so much sugar and cream that Neil felt diabetes eat away at his own kidneys.

“I think Riko is getting more comfortable around me.” 

“That’s good,” Andrew replied without missing a beat, eyes still trained to his coffee as though it were his life-saver “since that’s what I’m paying you for.”

Neil rolled his eyes with a scoff. “You’re such an asshole, I don’t know why I don’t just take your money and run.”

“Because of my sparkling personality.”

If Neil hadn’t turned around in shock, he would have missed the tiny little curl at the edge of Andrew’s mouth, there and gone in a second.  
Had Andrew just make a joke? Oh, God, he had. He couldn’t believe his biggest achievement as a con-man had been making Andrew Minyard believe he could be comfortable enough around Neil to make jokes.

Neil had been taught by life and by his mother (an even more severe teacher than life itself) how to school his face entirely, keeping anyone’s focus away from his true feelings. Even so, Andrew must have been taught how to read rocks and understand mountains when he was younger, because he still caught on to some of what Neil was thinking. 

“Get your head out of the gutter, Josten, you’re just not important enough for me to care about what you think.”

That sounded plausible and exactly what Andrew would say and possibly even feel, and yet… that curl of the mouth when Andrew had finished his joke…

“I thought you hated liars.” He couldn’t have imagined the flash of something more in Andrew’s eyes. Not a second time in a row. Neil was much better than this.

“We’re here to talk about Riko and your job, Neil. Not about what I might or might not be thinking at any given moment. You had better give up now because you won’t get anywhere.”

Neil took the unspoken ‘no’ for what it was and went on to report to Andrew about the two times him and Riko had gone out after the Charity Event, the time at the dog park and the one after that, at the Japanese restaurant downtown.

The owners and the waiters had seemed to know Riko at the restaurant, talking to him in hushed voices and with wide eyes. Andrew had been intrigued by this, asking Neil for details and for the name of the place they had been to.

“I think we’re getting somewhere. Riko thinks he can trust me because he has my mother’s death hanging over my head. He doesn’t think I would ever dare cross him.” 

Andrew only hummed, finishing his cup. “It’s not that he thinks you wouldn’t dare. It’s that he thinks he owns you now.” He finally said, placing his cup down on the table with an air of finality. Neil wasn’t sure how that was any different.

His cup was still half full when the door to the bedroom farthest from the entrance opened, heavy footsteps making their way to the kitchen until a sleep ruffled Kevin Day emerged under the noon sunlight, eyes half closed and miles away from the kid Ne-Nathaniel had known, left hand still in a plain white cast.

He went for the coffee machine like a man on a mission until he realized that Andrew was not the only person there, green eyes suddenly focusing on Neil’s face will horrified realization, his old name escaping his mouth like a curse. _Nathaniel._

Neil corrected him with a smirk. “It’s Neil now. Hi Kevin. Long time no seen.”

Kevin’s eyes slid from Neil to Andrew and back again in horror, his good hand scratching his cast in an anxious gesture.

“What are you doing here?” Kevin finally asked, short and to the point.

Neil’s smile was slightly more genuine. “God, you really haven’t changed at all have you? You’re still just as much of an asshole.”

Kevin bristled at the insult, mouth sliding open and ready for a comeback.

Andrew interrupted him. “Uh uh, no fighting under my roof, children. Take it outside if you want to, though I wouldn’t recommend and actual physical fight, Kevin. Aaron wouldn’t be too happy after all his hard work.”

Kevin smacked his mouth shut, rumbling the whole time about assholes and short people as he made his way towards the living room.

Andrew yelled at his retreating back “I wouldn’t let Aaron hear you say that either if I were you.”, to which Kevin merely answered with a raised finger.

Andrew’s grin was terrifying, all teeth and no happiness, but Neil found himself grinning as well, following Kevin and Andrew out of the kitchen.

Once there, Kevin repeated the question. “Nathaniel. What the fuck are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since…”

“Since me and my mother run away.” Neil interrupted him in a guarded voice. “Yeah, I know. And it’s Neil.”

“ _Neil_ , then.” Kevin said, exasperated.

“Kevin, I wouldn’t look so down if I were you.” Neil bit back, finally angry. “I’m here to do you a favor.”

“What are you talking about? Andrew what is he talking about?”

“Kevin.” Andrew said calmly. “Settle down, would you? He’s working for me now. I told you I would take care of him, didn’t I? That’s what I’m doing, and Neil here has been kind enough to offer his help.”

Neil scoffed at the choice of words. “Offer my help. Yes, you could put it like that. Or you could also put it like ‘He is paying me very good money to steal something Riko cares about.’”

Kevin turned his head towards Andrew sharply, breath stuttering in his chest and eyes wide. “Andrew.”

Neil narrowed his eyes. Kevin’s words meant nothing, he’d always been a drama queen, but his eyes were an accusation. They screamed _‘What have you done?”_

Neil would have very much liked to know that too.

Andrew waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, putting his socked feet up on the coffee table. “This is the best way to get to Riko. We get what we want, and Neil gets money. It’s a win win situation.”

Neil’s eyes fell to where Kevin’s right hand was gripping his left, fingers digging into the cast hard enough that the tips were white from the tension. Something dark and pained twisted Kevin’s featured when he looked at Andrew and then Neil one last time before settling down with a sigh, right hand scratching the cast and his skin right on the edge where it disappeared under it.

Andrew put his feet down on the carpet and reached for Kevin’s hand with a swift twist of his wrist, catching it in a death grip. “No. You know Aaron said no scratching it. He might have to re-cast it.”

Like before, the mere mention of this ‘Aaron’ had Kevin behave all prim and proper once more, head turning frantically left and right to make sure ‘Aaron’ wouldn’t magically appear out of thin air to scold him about not being safe and careful with his hand.

Neil raised an eyebrow in Andrew’s direction. “Am I supposed to know who this ‘Aaron’ guy is? Will Riko talk about him? Kevin seems to know him.”

Kevin choked, his body shaking and trembling and his head falling onto his open right palm. “Oh God. Aaron.” 

Andrew snorted, amused at a first glance. But Neil had learned to read the small differences in Andrew’s expression when he was really, truly angry. (He’d learned to read every man he met when they were angry).

Andrew sounded amused, but there was a storm behind his blank eyes as he looked at Kevin coldly and scornfully. “Aaron is my twin brother. He’s a doctor, so I asked him to take care of Kevin when he came to me for help.”

Andrew sounded amused, but he looked like he had never regretted anything more in his life than introducing his brother to Kevin.

Neil had grown up between a rock and a hard place, he’d been trained to pick up small details since he was born. He knew how to understand and use weaknesses in people and it was a skill set that had come in handy more than once in the past, most of all now that he was warming his way into Riko Moriyama’s good graces, someone he had to learn to read like the back of his hand if he wanted to survive long enough to pay rent.

The way Kevin had said Aaron’s name had sounded like a weakness, the soft curling of the sound going up in the end, a whispered breath, the corners of his eyes turning kinder and dangerously fond in a way Kevin Day never was.

Neil had not met Andrew’s twin yet, but Kevin Day being so obviously attached to someone did not bode well for any of them. It was the wound that Riko would eventually find and twist, until Kevin was a bloody mess again.

 

Riko called again that night as Neil was waiting for his plain canned dinner. Neil let it ring a few seconds until the name on the screen stopped flashing and took his food out of the microwave. He smirked in triumph when it started ringing again a moment later, picking it up this time and flipping it open. 

“Riko. I didn’t expect you to call so soon.”

“Nathaniel.” He didn’t sound so happy just then. “I expect you to answer me when I call.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to eat first. My bad, I will ask your permission next time before getting some food.” Neil kept his tone as light as possible, but the bite behind his words was hard to miss.

Riko wasn’t too happy about that one either, and Neil winced at the other’s barely held back fury, most of all when his future and his possible ‘relationship’ with Riko were called into question.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s just been a long day and I was really hungry.”

“What have you been doing with your long day, I wonder.” He sounded almost entirely soothed. Almost.

Neil started talking about his newest painting, the lines just a little bit off, the colors just a little bit wrong, enough to make him rage in frustration at his inability to bring outside what he could feel inside.

Riko let him drawl on for a while, allowing Neil’s voice to calm his suspicious nature. During their whole conversation Riko had been building up to something he wanted to ask, getting close but never quite saying what was really bugging him. By the time Neil went on to describe the shades of yellow he was trying to buy online for his latest work, Riko had calmed down enough to call Neil’s old name once more, stopping his endless background chatter.

“I want to pick you up tomorrow evening. I will choose the place. Wear something nice.” It wasn’t really a question. And Riko didn’t really want an answer. He just wanted the parody of one, to keep up the pretense that Neil had some sort of control over what Riko could get.

He did have that power, but Riko could never find that out, or he would find Andrew, the arch of his shoulders as he turned his back to Neil a blooming hope; he would find Kevin, his arm a bloody mess but a new shining light in his eyes; and he would find Aaron, this twin of Andrew’s whom Neil had never seen, but seemed to make both Andrew and Kevin calmer in the middle of a storm.

The day after, he chose one of the costumes Andrew had picked for him, a light grey that hugged his figure like smoke. He told himself it was because he didn’t own any better clothes and that’s what he was supposed to wear with Riko, not the stuff that Andrew scoffed at. The man would expect nothing less.

He viciously crushes the tiny voice in his head telling him that it was because Andrew had chosen those clothes.

Riko picked him up at the exact time he said he would, driving himself, strangely enough. Neil didn’t know what kind of car it was, but from the way the onlookers turned their heads impressed and by the proud smirk on Riko’s face, he guessed it was a really nice one.

Andrew would probably find the information more interesting than Neil did when he called him later that night.

Their table had been reserved in a secluded corner, where they could have privacy. Neil tugged at his bangs self-consciously, glad that the only person whose attention he was attracting was Riko. He was uncomfortable enough in those tight grey pants and the dark, almost black shirt without adding the stares of strangers to the equation.

Neil behaved perfectly, his mind fresh with the memory of his mother’s ghost and how she used to fool people into underestimating her, ever the perfect doll. Sometimes even his father was fooled, just for a little while. Just until he remembered who he’d married. The smile burned on his face felt like ash, painful and faker than it had ever been even during those awful eight years, gunfire waking him up in the dark like a nightmare up until he’d sunk his mother’s bones into the sea and faded away, gone. He remained perfectly in character the whole time, teasing Riko enough to show interest and fiery personality, which he seemed to like, but not enough to anger him. He accepted the glass of wine with only a grimace, admitting that he wasn’t one for drinking. At Riko’s surprised raised eyebrow he simply shrugged, offering a generic excuse about not liking the taste ( _Like gasoline and fuel_ he thought secretly in the safe corners of his mind).

He talked about his art a lot, like he often did around Riko, the safe space he could retreat to where Riko would never find the cracks in the wall of his persona.  
He hoped Riko would find his interest and his insistence charming enough to one day show him his most prized family heirlooms, when Neil’s mission would finally be over, and Neil could…

He didn’t know what he would do, after that. Riko would probably figure it out. Neil Josten would have to die, and Nathaniel Wesninski would have to shed yet another skin, this time one that he had grown dangerously comfortable in. But at least he could pay Matt and Dan back for everything they’d done for him.

After they finished eating the food that Neil had never seen before in his life, Riko finally drove Neil back to his small apartment. Neil stayed in the car, unsure of what was expected of him, eyes darting towards the entrance and then back to Riko frantically.

Riko was fortunately amused by the display instead of insulted, bringing Neil’s hand to his mouth and kissing it with a smirk. “I never expected you to be so shy Nathaniel. What a pleasant surprise.”

At Neil’s confused frown, he laughed again. “You can be so innocent when it comes to some things. It’s entertaining. But don’t worry about it.” His smile turned dark, teeth bared and shining white against the black upholstery of the car. “I’ll take care of it.”

Neil got out of the car and watched Riko drive off, limbs shaking and teeth clattering not from the chill of the air. He felt the weight of what hadn’t been said crushing his chest and he wondered, not for the first time, what Andrew had gotten him into.

The next day, after spending a sleepless night in his own bed, getting up every hour to check and re-check the locks on the windows and on the door, he finally called Andrew to let him know that they were on the right track to keep Riko hooked in.

He didn’t say anything about what Riko had said, or about the horrible feeling that had haunted his night. His voice might have given away something though, or maybe he’d just been too careful in the way he spoke his words, tiredness making him slurry and slow.

Andrew hadn’t contributed much to the conversation, limiting himself to humming or grunting along when Neil said something. Neil had almost convinced himself that he was just bored and uninterested with Neil’s report. “What’s wrong with you?” The blond suddenly asked, his focus trained on Neil like a whip.

Neil spluttered, his mouth still curled around the words he was speaking before he’d been interrupted. “Nothing’s wrong with me.” He answered, confused.

“Don’t lie to me.” Andrew sounded dead just then, like the weight of the words had been resting on his shoulders long enough to kill him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Neil evaded once more, “I’m fine.”

Andrew scoffed, his voice vitriol. “I thought you were done lying to me.”

“Why do you even care?” Neil challenged.

“I don’t.”

The silence that followed was uncomfortable and full of unsaid words.

“I don’t care, Neil. About anything. But…” he hesitated, almost as uncomfortable as Neil felt, “I got you into this, and you promised you would report back everything that happens with Moriyama. Are you going to keep your promise?”

Neil wondered, suddenly, if anyone had ever kept a promise made to Andrew. He realized that it explained a lot about the other man.

“Nothing happened.” He repeated slowly, continuing before Andrew’s fury could reach a new level. “Nothing really happened, I think everything is just catching up with me. I think I’m starting to realize what I got myself into. It’s not… easy.”

Andrew was quiet for so long that Neil checked his phone to make sure he hadn’t hung up by accident. 

“It’s never easy.” Andrew said in the end. “It’s not supposed to be easy, not for people like us. You just have to do your job and keep going. Remember we have an endgame.”

How could Neil ever forget?

Not when the next time they met, Riko kisses his cheek instead of his hand. And the time after that, he kisses his mouth, leaving behind fire and smoke and Neil’s wide eyes.

The only thing that kept him grounded into reality was the sound of Andrew’s voice when he called for a check in, or the curve of his mouth when Neil went to his house every time he needed something, or someone, to hold him up once more.

Riko’s possessiveness was in part a blessing. His steel rooted desire to keep Neil to himself and away from the public’s eye meant that no one would come to know if Neil stayed a little bit longer than necessary at Riko’s house, his mind far away and thinking of yellow hills and green forests.

As dark fingertip marks painted a constellation and a story on Neil’s already mangled body, he picked up his brush less and less. His last painting remained unfinished, blue lines on a pink sky.

The canvas after that remained white and untouched.

He didn’t make the connection in the beginning. He didn’t realize that every time he talked himself into submitting and giving up a tiny little piece of himself, he would run away to hide in the only corner he felt safe: Andrew’s house.  
He was close sometimes to giving up, to telling Andrew that he couldn’t do it anymore, that Riko was asking for more than Neil was willing to give, the bruises he left marked into his soul as well as his body, so unlike the ones his father liked to leave behind. He’d come close sometimes as him and Andrew set together in the latter’s kitchen, Neil nursing his cup of tea and Andrew his cup of sugar with coffee, their words open and real, truths falling from their mouths like candy. 

But he hadn’t, sure that the other must have already known what the job would entail when he’d told Neil to get close to Riko Moriyama. So he didn’t say anything, letting Andrew’s searching gaze sweep by him unperturbed every time his skin felt too hot, escaping with an excuse he would always regret the day after and always repeat the day after that. He didn’t say anything, too weak to hear Andrew’s voice as he said words Neil wasn’t ready to hear, and he kept going back to Andrew’s house whenever he needed to. In the beginning he could lie to himself and pretend that it was to update him on how the job was going but then, slowly, it was just because he could. It was just because it was Andrew, and Neil could willfully choose to go to his house.

He ignored it for as long as he could, knowing that his employer was cold like steel and a wall Neil could fall back to when things felt hollow and empty. He was the man he could go back to because Andrew didn’t care about the awful things Neil did in the dark, be it cold blooded murder or this. Andrew didn’t care about the ugly parts of Neil, he just cared about the good results he could give him. He just wanted the job done right.

It happened slowly, or maybe all at once, and Neil had been too blind to realize what it was until much later. Every time Riko’s hands inched a little lower, every time he felt his own perfect smile freeze in determination and acceptance, he went back to Andrew’s house. Sometimes it was full daylight, Andrew’s brother still at the hospital and Kevin either asleep or lurking around the apartment. Other times it was evening, the light slowly turning to darkness, Aaron sulking at Neil’s presence and him and Kevin dancing around each other like dolls.

But sometimes it was night, and everyone was asleep when Neil knocked on Andrew’s door with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, the end of summer slowly bleeding into cool autumn air in Columbia. 

Andrew, who woke up at the whisper of a wind, always let him in dropping a cup of scalding tea in his hands and sitting in silence until Neil fell asleep on his couch as the first hint of dawn colored the windows outside.

Neil would have wondered at the look on Andrew’s face when he sometimes woke up with sleep ruffled hair and at the way his eyes were not soft exactly but not blank either.  
He would have wondered about the way his own eyes blinked in surprise one day when Andrew’s hand touched his when he handed him his tea, his cheeks heating and his hands curling around _his_ mug, the one with the fat cat with a sword that he’s named Sir when it suddenly appeared in Andrews house for Neil’s use alone.

But he didn’t wonder. He just looked at Andrew through his lashes and sipped his tea. Andrew looked back, impassive, a question in his eyes as he held his hand out in invitation across the table, leaving the choice to Neil as he asked quietly _Yes or no?_

Neil didn’t wonder. He reached out instead and grabbed Andrew’s hand with his own as he drank his tea with the other. He let himself have this, just this once. Just until he had to let go again.

Carefully, Andrew led him to his own bedroom, turning the lights on in the small room. The bad was pushed against the wall and everything was in its place, the floor tiny and the desk free free of junk. It felt like Andrew, organized and methodical, hiding in plain sight.

Andrew hooked a finger in Neil’s collar without touching his skin, getting close enough that he could feel his heat through his clothes. Staring at Neil the whole time, Andrew unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the black tank top underneath and the black armguards.

Neil ghosted a finger over his forearm, watching him carefully in case his yes turned into a no. Slowly, he helped Andrew free himself of them, revealing pale skin and raised lines that spoke of pain and hurt and fight. He didn’t ask about them, just like Andrew had never asked about the scars on Neil’s torso that had seen every once in a while when Neil was too tired to be careful, his head rolling down on the back of Andrew’s couch and his shirt riding up. Andrew didn’t care about Neil’s haunted past, so Neil in turn didn’t care about Andrew’s, letting the blond push him down down down on his bed, closer than he’d ever been to anyone else before.

Neil’s world was blooming colors once more, shooting stars and his heart on a canvas, open and bleeding raw. His world started and ended with Andrew, with Andrew’s hands on his overheated skin and with Andrew’s mouth leaving marks he wouldn’t mind staring at in the mirror.

Afterwards, Neil laid on his side, tracing Andrew’s side with a slim finger and thinking of waves and golden sunsets and dark wings. He thought of screaming mouths and the blank canvas he’d left at his own apartment, his mind screaming with Andrew’s voice every time he tried to draw what he’d become comfortable with, and his hand freezing before he put the first brushstroke as he tried to paint what hurt him.

But as he stared at Andrew’s eyes, dark and half lidded, he thought he could do this. He set up in the bed by Andrew’s side, picking his blue work shirt up from the floor where he’d left it.

“Yes or no?” he whispered in the space between them, finger trailing up until it traced the line of Andrews shoulder and the strap of his black tank top. “Can I draw on your skin?” His fingers traced down his arm until they reached his scars, hiding under Neil’s fingertips.

Andrew hummed his Yes against Neil’s mouth, chasing the words down his jaw and neck and Neil laughed, as unguarded as he’d ever been in his life, getting up to grab his colored markers from the bag he always carried with himself. Andrew’s eyes followed the curve of his back and the muscles in his legs, attentive.

He came back with the colors that made him think of Andrew: gold, red, orange, black, brown. Earth and fire and night. He set down by Andrew’s side once more and placed the tip of his brush on Andrew’s forearm. Andrew stared at him for a moment, heat and vulnerability shading his gaze as he considered something before slowly, carefully taking his tank top off and laying down on his belly, offering Neil his broad back as a canvas.

He kept looking at Neil as he kneeled by his side, careful to always be in his line of vision as he grabbed the gold marker, and then the blue and the orange and the black and the red, painting pain and fight and hope and life on Andrew’s skin, painting his heart on that canvas and his art like a prayer to a wordless God.

He painted with Andrew’s voice in his ear from back during their first meeting, telling him to put himself in his paintings and to make it hurt enough that people would try to turn away from that pain without being able to. He drew a bloody mess on Andrews back, faceless demons dripping darkness and lonely figures fighting, and to the side Hope in her golden glory, light the color of Andrew’s hair and eyes surrounding Neil’s dreams and fears and pain until he was safe once more.

Andrew stared at him calmly when he stopped drawing, eyes fixed on the beautiful mess on Andrew’s back and hands fidgeting with the golden marker still in his hands. 

Raising up on his elbows, he grabbed Neil’s markers and threw them on the nightstand, reaching out to cup the back of his neck after a small pause and a nod from Neil.

Carefully, slowly, he pulled Neil down to lay beside him, Neil on his side and Andrew still laying on his belly so as not to ruin the art on his back, face turned towards Neil’s.

He moved his hand from Neil’s neck to his face, covering his eyes and whispering in the trembling silence between them. “Sleep.”

So Neil slept peacefully for the first time after so long, curled around Andrew’s body and seeking the other’s heat.

He woke up early, his body used to expect a run before the start of the day. Andrew’s eyes were still closed, Neil’s art a beautiful mess on his back as he lay there unmoving, face turned to the side and hair curling around his temples.

Neil almost reached forward to push a golden lock away from his forehead, just managing to stop himself in time, fingers still hovering in the space between the two of them.

His years as a con man helped him stealthily get out of bed without waking Andrew up, gathering the rest of his discarded clothes from the floor and leaving for the bathroom to put them on where he wouldn’t disturb the blond from his slumber.

Once he was done with putting on most of his clothes, he walked back into the bedroom in search of his wayward sock. He found it slightly under the bedside table next to Andrew, the key inside its lock on the second drawer.

Curiosity got the better of him, years of sneaking into people’s houses and stealing their artful masterpieces making him wonder what kind of skeleton he would find in Andrew’s closet.

He didn’t find an heirloom, or art, or a skeleton or anything in between.

Instead, he found a gun. A 9 mm Sig Saur that he recognized with a sickening thud of his heart as belonging to the FBI, its weight familiar in Neil’s hand.

Shakily, he put the gun back in the drawer, looking through the papers inside written in German. Hastily, he skimmed through them, recognizing both his Abram persona and his real name, the one he had buried in a burning beach in California. Next to his name, there was Riko’s name, and Kevin’s.

Behind the papers, he finally found the badge.

Suddenly, Neil remembered the disdain with which Kevin had said Andrew’s name that first day, the note of panic in his voice and the flash of guilt in his eyes. Kevin hadn’t said anything, his decision a written confession all over his face if Neil had been smart enough to pay attention.

A horrible picture painted itself in Neil’s mind, a picture where Andrew had no qualms about sacrificing someone like Neil to get to someone like Riko in his endgame. Neil didn’t even know why he felt so shaken by the revelation. He’d always known he was expendable to Andrew, and yet he’d dared to hope. He couldn’t blame anyone but himself for not listening when Andrew had said that he didn’t care about Neil.

Neil put everything back inside the way it was supposed to be, careful to recreate every single detail and mindful of Andrew’s eidetic memory. His eyes were lost in the distance and his thoughts circled around the contacts he still remembered from his past, the ones he would need to call once this game of tug between Riko and Andrew was over. His mother’s ghost screamed at him to run away, to save himself and never look back. 

Neil obeyed, death following his footsteps like a good pet, and he didn’t notice Andrew’s eyes open into slits to stare at his retreating back.

He was used to being soundless because of what he did in his spare time. (Because of how he’d grown up, hiding and running and surviving when noise would get them killed). He never expected to have to sneak around in Andrew’s home, the home he’d burrowed himself into like in a safe haven, fooled by tea and blankets and a cup with a cat. Fooled by Andrew’s calm eyes and his strong hands.

He stood in front of the apartment door one last time, trembling in anger and fear and the realization that he’d lost. He looked at the kitchen cabinet that held his cat cup one last time before leaving soundlessly before dawn turned to morning.

 

Neil started running as soon as he left Andrew’s building, his legs taking him as far as his body could go when pushed to the limit. His lungs burned, and his teeth clattered, anxiety twisting his features as he couldn’t keep himself from thinking about his next step.

There was nothing he could do. He had put himself into this situation and there was no way out but in a casket. He could feel cold fingers in his hair like a death grip, his mother’s voice hissing at him that he’d been stupid, _so stupid_.

When his legs gave out, he finally set down on the sidewalk, head in his hands and his own fingers replacing his mother’s, tugging harshly. There was nothing he could do to survive this. Whatever he did, he would have to run, he couldn’t stay there anymore. His life there was over, he would never be able to come back. And if he run, for whatever reason, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Riko would chase him and kill him.

At least, if he gave Andrew what he wanted (What he _really_ wanted), he could do one last thing for the man who had given him long silent nights and a cup with a cat. Andrew, at the very least, had never lied to him. He had always said that Neil wasn’t important compared to the endgame.

Neil instead, as dumb as he’d always been, had gone and fallen in love with him, a pang in his heart and a blank canvas that he would never fill with colors again. His chest burned as though he’d been betrayed, but he couldn’t fault anyone but himself, really. He’d never been misled or lied to. Anything his brain had constructed about a home and a door always open had been the longest and most beautiful dream he had ever dreamt, but just a dream.

He might as well steal from Riko, he realized. He had nothing left to do after all.

As far as strategic hiding spots went, Riko’s were not the best. Not in his own house, where he thought he was surrounded by only loyal people, or people too scared of his name (or his knives) to betray him.

Neil found the papers in the birdhouse that Riko revered and controlled as though it were his most prized possession, keeping even most of his staff out of it and only accessing it himself to feed the ravens he had collected over the years.

Dates and lists and illegal transactions that would put him away for good, he thought bitterly. Andrew would like this, and he would like the connection between Riko and the people he worked for. Ichirou Moriyama’s name had been left out of every single document, but there were more than enough names to sate Andrew’s thirst for revenge, probably.

The family heirloom was with the papers. A brilliant necklace of gold and sapphire, scintillating in the darkness of the birdhouse like a star. The only thing that Riko had been allowed to reclaim of his family as the youngest son, destined to quietly launder money through the discovery and exploitation of young artists on behalf of his brother for the rest of his life.

Swiftly, he hid the papers inside his art bag, grabbing the necklace as well after a second, one last moment of pettiness, one last act for Neil Josten to hurt Riko.  
He left the birdhouse and Riko’s expensive home, so very different from Andrew’s own.  
The thought made him falter as anger once again rose up in his mind. He had lost everything.

He went to the Christmas Ball dressed in clothes that Riko had bought for once, instead of Andrew.

Arm linked with Riko’s, social and polite smile fixed on his face, champagne in his hand, he looked exactly what he was supposed to look like. Riko’s whore, bought with sweet words and broken promises on a wasteland of lies and betrayal, chin up and shoulders squared as he fought to survive.

He even enjoyed the dark look in Andrews eyes when he noticed them, stare falling to their linked arms and mouth clenched in anger. Neil ignored him, laughing at something Riko had said even though he hadn’t even heard him, mind far away and smile not reaching his eyes.

It hurt, being there with Riko when he’d been warming Andrew’s bed just the night before, sugar sweet and bared to the world, the truth sliding down his throat and along his tongue like honey.

There were no lies between them now. Neil knew who Andrew was, his name on that badge burned to the back of his eyes. And Andrew… Andrew had always known who Neil was, hadn’t he? He’d needed someone who was expendable, someone that no one would miss. He’d found Neil, the word Nothing tattooed on his forehead.

Neil had been fool enough to fall for that. His mother was rolling in her grave of sand and sea, raging against his stupidity.

It was awkward being there, surrounded by people who might miss him when he left. He knew it was almost cruel, but he wanted to see them one last time and Reynolds had given him the perfect chance. He suspected she’s only invited him to the Ball as some sort of twisted revenge for abandoning her and being in cahoots with Riko. He wouldn’t complain though, whatever her schemes may be. He had betrayed her trust after she had given him what no one else had, not even Andrew: a real opportunity. 

Reynolds looked like a vision, silver dress sparkling and moving like a wave around her, makeup perfect and sharp like her clever, deadly smile. Her eyes were poison and thousands of unsaid things every time they landed on Neil. 

The man at her side was the one that had been with them at lunch that day, watching over her and making sure no one so much as brushed her pinky little finger. He wore his tux poorly, like someone unused to going around in something that was probably more expensive than his yearly rent, uncomfortable but with his jaw clenched, his head held high and unconcerned with the looks people were sending their way, but almost preening under Allison’s fond, proud gaze.

Her other bodyguard, the one with the pastel colored hair and the deceptively serene smile, followed her calmly a couple of feet behind, a tall, pale man with a hollow look by her side, dark shadows under his eyes as he held her arm carefully, like holding glass. Neil could recognize the danger in her sharp profile, and he knew that she most definitely did not need protecting.

Kevin was there too, his own expensive tux putting to shame the one Allison’s bodyguard was wearing with how much it blatantly screamed _Money Money Money._ Kevin rarely left Andrew’s side, and when he did he was always followed by the other Minyard, Andrew’s twin. Neil had not interacted much with him, but Kevin’s eyes followed his movements like a lost puppy. He hung from his scathing words, pain and disappointment plain to see on his face every time Doctor Minyard turned away from him with a blank expression so similar to his brother that Neil could read right through it.

Aaron looked in pain, angry and desperate and desolate all at once, his steely self-restraint so similar to his brother’s that it was the only thing keeping him rooted to the floor. Neil wondered how that had happened. He wondered if the Minyard twins were actually more similar than they gave each other credit for.

He stopped thinking when he noticed Riko’s calculating gaze stop first on Kevin, and then follow his line of sight to Aaron Minyard, realization lighting his expression with a horrible smile.

Neil had seen this coming, oh so long ago when he’d first heard Kevin say Aaron’s name like a lover. He had realized back then that Aaron was his weakness and Riko would crush him just to hurt Kevin. Neil did not personally get along with him and he hadn’t interacted with him enough to come to care for him, but Kevin cared for him.

Most importantly though, Andrew cared for him, the truth laid bare between them during those long sleepless nights with Neil’s tea as a barrier between the two of them. Neil had stopped lying to himself about his feeling for Andrew. He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t care about him more than he cared about himself.

There was almost a sick sort of satisfaction in seeing Andrew’s eyes drop on their linked arms, confusion and then horrible clarity marring his stoic face. Neil had been waiting for that; for the moment when he could see the painful realization that Andrew must have gone through. Some part of him had still been hoping in the blonde’s ignorance about this. 

In a way it hurt more, thinking that if Andrew didn’t know and hadn’t been expecting this of Neil, then maybe everything he’d done had been for nothing.

Suddenly, the lights and the endless chatter around him became suffocating, walls closing around him like a death grip and breath struggling to reach his lungs. Neil excused himself from Riko’s side with a random explanation and left the room in search for some fresh air. He wandered around the building aimlessly, too distracted by his thoughts to pay attention to the people greeting him, until the trembling in his hands forced him to stop and get out onto the balcony at the end of the hallway.

He stayed there looking at the stars until he felt soft footsteps stopping behind him, years on the run jerking his body around. He was coiled for a fight up until he recognized the wide shoulders and the bored downturned mouth of the man in front of him, his own limbs betraying him and relaxing when he should have reeled back in anger.

Leaning back against the railing, he went back to staring at the dark sky over their head. “Why are you here, Andrew?”

In took Andrew a long time to answer and when Neil lowered his head to see his face he looked stretched thin around the edges in a way he’d never been, more human and more reachable than ever, a dark frown twisting his mouth into a parody. “You need to know that I would have never asked… that of you.”

“Do I need to know?” Neil asked, relentless. “Or do you need me to know? Those are not the same thing.”

When Andrew’s face went back to its usual blank façade Neil scoffed, suddenly tired. “Of course. You never need anything. Like you didn’t really need me.”

He reached into the secret pocket inside the jacket Riko had bought for him, taking out the necklace and the papers with Riko and Neil’s family names printed all over them. “Here’s the thing Riko values the most. And here’s what you were really after since day one, Andrew.”

Andrew reached out to take what Neil was offering, careful to not brush Neil’s fingers as his own curled around the papers in that ugly victory.

“You win.” Neil said tiredly, hand anxiously combing through his hair, waiting for the moment when this would all be over, and he could run. He would have gladly skipped this part if he could, and the sooner he got out of there the better of a head-start he could have.

Andrew’s voice was broken glass and bleeding wounds when he spoke. “Neil. I never lied to you.”

Neil laughed his father’s laugh, cruel and broken, because Andrew really hadn’t, had he? He hadn’t lied, not even once. “I know you didn’t. But you had no qualms about telling me the truth either.”

Andrew repeated his name again, shaking his head. Not a prayer but a fragile thing. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that I wasn’t lying to you.” He sounded as empty as he looked, unable to tell Neil what he really meant. If it had been about anyone but himself, Neil would have understood Andrew without words, like he’d always done in the months they’d known each other.

But he had never been good at understanding people who cared about him, his closest comparison his mother’s particular brand of tough love, slim fingers in his hair pulling and twisting until he was molded into something that wouldn’t get them killed.

“Have a good life Andrew. I hope those help you get what you wanted.”

He left Andrew there, fingers in a tight grip around the papers he’d given him, and he run.

Riko would kill him, he knew that. He also knew that no one would protect him. His mother was dead, and Andrew had gotten what he wanted. He had only promised to keep Neil around for as long as he was useful. A dead man walking wasn’t useful.

 

He made it to the border between South Carolina and Georgia before they caught up with him, sleek car sliding across the cement and stopping right in front of him, cutting off his escape. He knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun all the five people who climbed out of the car, circling him. He was fast, but he was most definitely not invincible.

He tried though, his body jerking to the side and his feet slipping on the ground as he _tried tried tried_ to get away, get out and disappear into the woods where he would have to deal with red wolves and black bears instead of human monsters.

Harsh hands grabbed him by the waist. Someone gripped his flailing arms as he was lifted off the ground effortlessly, his body lean but treacherously small. He could feel a third person holding his head in place as he kept thrashing and holding his breath, a rag with chloroform covering his mouth and nose.

He tried to hold his breath for as long as he could, screaming in defeated rage when he finally had to give up and inhale the drug, his limbs and the rest of his body immobilized by hands all over him, keeping him down. After what felt like hours of his joins being pulled and his body constricted and surrounded the world started turning sideways, the voices and the grunts of pain of his captors when he kicked them in the shin turning into background noise. Everything went black.

He woke up in the trunk of the car, hands and feet bound and darkness surrounding him. Every bump in the road made him jump in anticipation and fear as he was led to his death. 

He lost track of time in the small confines of the hole he was in, walls closing in around him and lungs barely able to breathe. He thought it must have been still night by the time they stopped, they wouldn’t have risked taking him out of the trunk in full daylight. Even so, he had a moment of blind panic and confusion when the trunk was opened, and he was assaulted by light, wondering if he really had lost that much time before realizing that the light came from the vividly lit porch of the big house Neil only remembered from his childhood. It was Riko’s old house, the one he had grown up in. The one Neil had spent hours and hours in, playing with Riko and painting with Kevin.

Roughly, he was dragged out into the chilly wind of early December, goosebumps rising on his arms and small clouds forming in front of him with every breath he took. Someone cut the strings binding his ankles and he was pushed forward, dragged inside the house and down to the basement where he was ungracefully thrown to the ground.

He struggled to sit up, grunting in pain when a booted foot collided with his ribs and crushed his windpipe, holding him down. He could hear someone laughing across the room, the sound muted as though underwater.

Frantically, he tried to push the foot away from his throat, his mouth choking in search for air that he gulped down in big breaths when he was finally released, coughing and spluttering.

A hand jerked his head back and he looked around in a panic, trying to see how many people he was surrounded by, his field of vision cut off by the darkness and by his disadvantaged position on the floor. He thought there must have been at least three people, the one pulling his hair in a death-like grip included.

He was pulled up by his hair, a pained yelp escaping his steely resolve to not give them the satisfaction of hearing him beg, and he was dragged across the floor until they reached a barrel filled with water.

Neil knew what was going to happen even before his head was pushed inside, terror flashing through his mind and a silent scream cut off by the water that engulfed him. He could feel the hands holding his head down as he thrashed, lungs burning as though he’d been breathing fire instead of water, his mouth opening against his volition to scream.

When he was released, he fell on his hands and knees, heaving, water dripping from his hair. He stayed there trembling for as long as he was allowed to, until he was dragged back up again and forced on his knees. He could see all the people surrounding him, but he didn’t recognize anyone.

Riko wasn’t there yet, his people doing the dirty work for him until Neil was a docile little thing. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him break. Riko would have to kill him while he watched him in the eyes.

He lost track of time again after that, his screams filling the room as the skin on his forearms was peeled away. He could taste blood in his mouth, his teeth sinking into his tongue one too many times.

And then Riko showed up in all the glory of his fury, dressed just as sharply as he always did. _He probably just finished talking to the police about how his beloved boyfriend disappeared with his family heirloom_ , Neil thought bitterly to himself.

Riko sounded furious too when he crouched down in front of Neil’s heaving body, eyes cold and smile cruel. “Nathaniel. That wasn’t very smart of you.”

Neil didn’t even try to get up, he just laid there, staring at a crack on the ceiling of the basement. “I’ve always hated that name.” His voice sounded positively wrecked, throat swollen from being crushed by someone’s boot and from all the water that had been forced down his lungs.

“I’m sure you have your reasons, Nathaniel.” The bastard said, enjoying every single minute of what he was doing. “I wonder if your father felt this way when your mother betrayed him and took you away. “

Neil tried to launch himself towards the other man, fingers twitching in fury when his wrist was caught in a vice like grip, fire travelling down his arm as his mangled limb was squeezed in warning.

Neil’s scream of desperation was cut off by his need to breath, chest constricting and forcing him to take in short, fast gulps of air. “Keep my mother’s name out of your fucking mouth.” He bit out.

“Why?” Riko asked in delight. “It’s true after all. I’m sure your father enjoyed killing her very much when he caught up with the two of you. But that was short lived, wasn’t it? I doubt your uncle will save you again though. I hear he’s still in England.”

Neil hadn’t been hoping to be saved by his uncle again; he knew miracles only happened once. Even so, hearing those words coming out of Riko’s mouth had been a slap to the face. He hadn’t realized there was some part of him that still hoped to get out of this alive. He thought he’d already learned his lesson about hope being a dangerous, disquieting thing when he’d let Andrew into his life.

Defeated, he turned his head to look at the opposite wall, as far away from Riko as possible, until his chin was gripped in a tight grip and he was forced around again.

“No, Nathaniel. You will look at me as you die.”

Neil’s eyes zeroed in to the knife in Riko’s hand. “Riko. Don’t”

“Don’t? Are you asking me not to hurt you Nathaniel? After you betrayed me like that? You were mine! What did Minyard promise you to make you betray me you whore?”

Neil’s temper snapped. “I was never yours to begin with you fool! I have always been his!”

The tip of the knife pressed lightly under his eye made him stop short, suddenly terrified. “So you were his from the beginning?” Riko let the knife slide from right under his eye to his jaw, making Neil hiss at the pain. “What do you think he will feel when he sees your body with your eyes all plucked out?”

Neil stayed as still as possible when he felt the pressure increase under his eye. “Nothing.” He finally whispered. “Nothing, he doesn’t care about me.”

“Oh!” Riko sounded delighted just then. “Nathaniel, you poor little thing. You’ve been fooled too.”

Neil would have rather grabbed the knife and cut his own face up then admit Riko was right, so he stayed quiet and clenched his teeth when the knife bit into the flesh of his right cheek once more before it left his skin again, raised high above Riko’s head and glinting in the dark.

Neil twisted with a pained gasp as Riko’s knife sunk in his side, skillfully missing anything important but causing enough pain that Neil realized Riko would enjoy spending the whole night bleeding him dry. He wouldn’t let that happen. He would go out the way he wanted to.

Clenching his teeth against the pain, Neil brought a knee up with as much force as possible, able to only slow Riko down for a second but enough that they could both hear the sudden banging noise a moment later, followed by the door to the basement being kicked in and the shouted ‘FBI, don’t move!’

Riko made the smart decision to not move with the guns pointed at his head, still sitting on a bleeding, panting Neil, knife in his hand.

Neil stayed as still as possible, body trembling as he felt Riko’s weight over his thighs and watched his people brought down one by one. He stayed still until he felt someone jolt Riko away from him, telling him his rights in a deep, familiar voice that Neil knew too well.

Shocked, he turned to where Andrew was handcuffing Riko Moriyama and handing him over to another agent before crouching down by Neil’s side, resting a gloved hand on his shoulder when Neil tried to sit up before winching in pain.

“Don’t move, you idiot. We have an ambulance waiting outside.”

“I don’t need your help.” Neil scowled, trying to get up again and panting all the way through until he was sitting upright, a hand holding his still bleeding side. “I don’t need you.”

“You can stand up on your own and walk outside as well, can’t you?” Andrews scoffed scornfully. “Don’t be such a fucking martyr, I’m just helping you outside. Unless you want to crawl there.”

“Maybe I do.” Neil snapped. “I gave you what you want, now leave me alone!”

“I will as soon as you are inside that ambulance.” Andrew promised with a dark look in his eyes.

Neil glared back at him before sighing in defeat when he recognized that any small movement shot fire up his side. “Fine. Just get me out of here.”

Andrew helped him up supporting his weight effortlessly, and together they walked out of the basement.

 

Andrew had left him alone once they’d reached the ambulance, just like he’d promised, and Neil had found himself surrounded by doctors and nurses at the hospital, taking up what felt like a whole ER because of his extensive knife wounds.

The agents had cuffed him to the bed under the glares of the nurses, worried about his chafed raw wrists. After they had assured themselves that Neil would not be physically able to run, they had finally taken the cuffs away, leaving an Agent to watch him like a hawk while he went through the process of getting his wounds stitched.

The painkillers helped keep him calm and mostly unresponsive for the first two days, until he was lucid enough to refuse another dose, doctor’s prescriptions filled in a small bag.

Agent Browning, the agent that had watched over him, finally brought him dark sweatpants, a plain grey hoodie and dark sneakers his size, letting him change into something that would let him get out of the hospital without attracting any unwanted attention.

Once they checked out, Browning led him to an unassuming silver Ford, sitting in the back with him and letting his partner drive them to their field office where Neil would undoubtedly be interrogated.

He hadn’t seen Andrew since they had parted ways on the ambulance. The other had stayed away like he’d promised. Neil wasn’t sure if he was glad or upset over the fact. He told himself it was for the best, that it had started wrong anyways. It was supposed to end like this. He told himself he was only upset because he would have wanted to fight him one last time, to say his piece before he was carted off to jail. He told himself a lot of things. The problem with liars was that they learned to lie to themselves as well.

Once he was locked inside the interrogation room, the agents kept calling him Nathaniel, ignoring his glares and his repeated requests to be called Neil. Neil in turn ignored their questions until they called him with the name he had chosen to die with. The name he was now deciding to go to jail with. He would not bring his father’s reputation inside a prison.

The interrogation lasted for hours, and Neil stubbornly refused the food and the drinks he was offered occasionally, retreating to the safety of a world where he was the only one who could take care of Neil Josten.

He told them about his mother’s last breathes in a beach in California, her bones decaying at the bottom of the sea. He told them about his uncle destroying his father in revenge, and how Neil had thought he’d finally been free of everything. He’d been free up until the FBI had sank their claws into him at least, in the form of one Andrew Minyard, a blinding sunlight that had derailed all of Neil’s carefully laid out plans for the future.

Then, he told them what they were impatiently waiting to hear: his ties to Riko Moriyama, and what he had discovered about the man while he’d been sharing his bed and his life.  
He talked about the money laundering, and how he used Galleries for lesser known, younger artists for his transactions because the turnout was more manageable. No one looked closer to Galleries unless it was someone who was already famous and well known, and Riko’s reputation as a patron of the arts had been a perfect cover for his job.

Andrew walked in right on the last part, as Neil was describing where he had found the papers and how he had known where to find them.

Neil’s jaw went slack when he saw him, his cheeks paling in horror and then reddening in anger at the man in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you get out of here in one piece.” Was the bored response.

Neil started shaking his head before Andrew was even done talking. “No. No I don’t want you here. You said only to the ambulance. You promised.”

“I did. And I did leave you alone until you needed me again.”

“I don’t!” Neil’s response was as swift and glacial as he’d hoped it would be. “I don’t need you! My job is done, just let me go to jail in peace.”

Andrew didn’t deal in regrets, he only dealt in truths and in promises, but something dark shadowed his eyes at Neil’s pain laid bare between the two of them. “I _will_ leave you alone Neil, just as soon as you’re safe. My job is not over yet, I did promise I would see this to the end and get you out of it alright.”

“Well, I’m alive. So good job, you’re done, now leave.”

“I said when you’re alright Neil, not alive. And no,” Andrew sounded definitely annoyed just then, “your flimsy definition of ‘fine’ does not count.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here,” Neil spat furiously, “but this is not something you can get me out of. Not when you got me into this mess in the first place.”

Andrew was about to reply when Agent Browning interrupted him. “That’s enough, the both of you. You can continue your spat without the rest of us here. We got what we came for anyways.” He paused at the door, turning to look at Andrew. “Agent Minyard, we will talk about this later.”

Andrew didn’t spare him a second glance, dismissing him with a gesture. “Not your department, Browning. I can do what I want.”

Browning only glared at him, gritting his teeth, but he turned around and left the interrogation room without a second look inside at Andrew or Neil.

Neil turned his head to stare at the wall the moment the door closed behind Agent Browning, trying to avoid Andrew’s eyes for as long as possible.

Andrew allowed him that moment of silence a little while longer before swiftly walking towards him. “You are being unnecessarily difficult right now. Just accept my help.”

“ _Unnecessarily_ , he says.” Neil scoffed. “There is nothing unnecessary about this, I am simply trying to hold on to the last shreds of my pride before you strip me of that as well. Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

Neil heard Andrew stop for a second, eyes still turned to anywhere but where the other was and felt viciously proud for a moment to have made the man falter and perhaps feel a fraction of the pain Neil was feeling. Angrily, he stomped on the part of his brain that told him that Andrew was safe, he was trusted enough to get close, enough to be able to touch and see and trace the flaws on Neil’s body and the gaps in his heart, void and empty like a blank canvas.

He’d thought Andrew would be safe to trust inside his mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d been wrong.

“That was… deserved, I suppose.” Andrew’s quiet, calculated voice made him turn his head the slightest bit towards him in surprise, the words as unexpected as the careful, perhaps even tentative tone. “In doing my job to the best of my ability and protecting a friend, I have hurt you.”

“This is not about me. This is about you being a hypocrite.” Neil bit out through clenched teeth. “You told me to bare my real self when you were… _you_. All along, you were never truthful about who you were”

He couldn’t see Andrew, but he could imagine the scoff on his downturned mouth, the same he’d directed at Neil so many times in the past since their first meeting. “I never once told you a lie.”

“I suppose, in the literal sense of the word, you never did.”

“I’m not an artist. Gutting my life open on the altar of your Art won’t be an even exchange.”

“Art was all I had! And you took that away from me!” Neil finally snapped. “You took everything I had away.”

“If you would just listen instead of going off, like always, you would understand that I am trying to help you get everything back. You kept your end of the deal, just let me keep mine and protect you!” Andrew snapped back, forcing Neil to finally turn his gaze to him, to his clenched fists and blank, dangerously smooth expression. “I am trying to keep you safe and away from prison, Neil. Just let me help you.”

After a heavy pause Neil finally sighed. “Why? Why would you? I want so much more than you could give me Andrew, but to you I’m just the pretty thief you’ve been playing like a fool until now.”

“You’re not.” Andrew’s voice was deceptively calm, but Neil knew he was starting to lose his barely existent patience.

“What am I then! Tell me what I am Andrew, because I don’t understand! What do you want from me!”

Andrew stared at him, the trembling in his hands slowing down and then blessedly stopping, expression still blank but not as dark, more resigned than angry. “You are a pipe dream.” _A halfway hope, a burning candle, a broken slip of a soul._

Agitated, Neil combed his hair back with his bandaged hand, hissing at the pain as his fingers twisted on auburn locks. “What do you want from me?” It came out like a prayer, a curse, a broken question for a broken boy.

“Anything you want to give me.” A broken answer, a promise, a new beginning.

Neil stared at one of the metal chairs in the interrogation room, eyes far away to a land of taking and not giving freely. He set down, and Andrew moved to stand behind him as they called the Agents back inside the room. Neil breathed in deeply and prepared himself to fight with someone at his side instead of being alone.

It was a terrifying feeling, having someone in his corner.

 

Three days later, Neil’s life had been turned on its head and he was now starting over as a real person, brushes and bottles of paint becoming his lifetime friends once again.

The tabloids had not released his name yet, and they hopefully never would, content to drag Riko Moriyama’s reputation through the mud after he had been arrested for money laundering and attempted murder. His trial would be in the spring, still months away, but the general consensus was that he would be facing federal charges.

Who his victim had been was still unclear, though his involvement with organized crime had emerged, as well as the fact that Riko had somehow managed to inherit and continue the work of the Butcher of Baltimore. A week later, Riko would commit suicide inside his prison cell. Only Neil (and Kevin and Andrew) knew the truth. Ichirou Moriyama had no more use for his younger brother. He couldn’t risk Riko breaking and saying his name to the authorities. The Moriyama family would continue to rule from the shadows, and a new  
Nathan, a new Riko would soon come along.

Neil’s only saving grace was that the FBI had changed his name, and Nathaniel Wesninski had been killed and buried so long ago that it would take a while before anyone could reconnect him to one Neil Josten, struggling up and coming artist. More likely, someone would soon be able to connect Riko’s charges with the disappearance of Abram Hatford, the persona Neil had created to keep his “night life” separate from his everyday one. The criminal underground circles that had been paying Neil’s rent for a while would not receive another visit from Abram, and rich patrons with a grudge against each other would not be able to request his services anymore now that the FBI had cut him off from his major source of income.

Which was exactly why he found himself in the predicament he was in, unable to pay his rent and finally moving on from his friend’s apartment to someplace he could fight for with his own newfound legal strength. Not that Matt was making moving away any easier.

“I still don’t understand why you have to go.” Matt was sitting on the floor of Neil’s bedroom, back leaning against the wall by the door. “We were doing just fine! I thought we were ok.”

Neil sighed, zipping his duffel bag close. “Matt. It’s not like that. I have brought more than enough trouble to you and Dan.”

Matt had been hurt when Neil had come back, bleeding and scarred, new wounds taking the place of old ones. He’d been even more upset when he’d realized that Neil had been struggling to make ends meet the last few months, resorting to less than legal activities to make sure he could pay his share. Matt would have accepted Neil with open arms if he’d gone to him with his problems, and he would have tried to help him up to the very end. Randy, Matt’s mother, had helped Matt buy the place, so Matt wouldn’t have cared about Neil being unable to pay, but that was exactly why Neil couldn’t stay.

The disappointment in Matt’s eyes had been too much for Neil, whose guilt for having lied about his real identity for so long was eating him up. After everything Matt had done for him, the least Neil could do was make sure that his problems and his demons would never find Matt Boyd again. He shuddered to think of what could have happened if Riko had decided to go after Matt to get back at Neil for betraying him.

“Besides,” Neil continued, smiling tentatively. “It’s not like anything else is going to change. You’re still my best friend, right?” Neil hated how watery and unsure his voice sounded. He’d wanted to make it an affirmation, not a question.

“Right.” Matt nodded back, pouting the whole time. “Of course I am. I wish I could have done more.”

“You did though. You and Dan and Allison. You all did so much for me, and I have no way to repay you except try and keep you safe from my past in case something else happens.”

“What else could happen?”

“You never know.” Neil treated carefully. “I have to expect the unexpected, just in case.”

“Haven’t you gone through enough?” Matt sounded tired just then.

“People are cruel, Matt. You know that.”

Matt shook his head defeated and opened his mouth to answer when they heard the knock at the door, insistent and becoming stronger by the second. Matt rolled his eyes, standing back on his feet and yelling ‘I’m coming!’ as he went to open the door.

Neil finished packing the last box, putting away his brushes in a neat, organized pile while hushed voices came in through the entrance door, too low for Neil to distinguish which one was Matt and which one was the guest. That is, until he heard his name being called by a very familiar, deep voice.

Apprehension curled white hot in his stomach when he saw Andrew standing in front of the entrance, nose and cheeks red from the cool December air.

“Neil.” He greeted him in a bored voice. “We’re going for a ride.”

And Neil could have refused, and there was nothing Andrew could have done to force him to go. But he knew that they both needed closure and some sort of resolution for the things unsaid and the iron threads connecting them together. Neil reached for his jacket and his boots, the ones Andrew had bought for him a while ago. 

Andrew drove his expensive black car the way he run his life: with a purpose. Neil made a show of securing his seat belt the third time they sped up to overtake a car. They went west, following a trail that existed only inside Andrew’s head, trees closing in around them like guardians, the fallen leaves turning the ground into a blood red massacre that Neil could see on a canvas, the empty branches reaching out to touch the grey sky.

They stopped by the side of the road, the place isolated and far away from the city. Neil guessed that not a lot of cars would be passing by anytime soon.

“If you wanted me gone, you could have left me with the FBI weeks ago instead of killing me and burying me in the woods.” Neil joked.

All that got him was a silent glare, Andrew hastily getting out of the car before reaching back inside for the pack of smokes hiding between the junk and candy wrappers on the dashboard.

When Neil looked at him in confusion without following Andrew turned back around, slamming his open palm against the hood of the car. “What are you waiting for, a formal invitation? Get out of the fucking car, Neil.”

Neil did, scuffing and sighing the whole time to make sure Andrew knew he wasn’t happy about the new turn of events. “If you want to kill me make it quick. And no fire please.”

Andrew threw his cigarette on the ground, putting it out with the heel of his boot. “Stop. Shut up. Stop saying that.”

“Saying what?” Neil asked, for once genuinely confused instead of instigating. “The murder jokes? It’s just a joke. I know you wouldn’t.” His face twisted with a wry smile. “I know that much about you, at least.” Neil thought back to the way Andrew had made sure to put out the cigarette, surrounded by woods as they were. Andrew would never hurt someone if he didn’t have to.

“That.” Andrew nodded, agitated. “And the other word, too. Don’t say it. I don’t like it.”

“What other word? Plea-” Neil’s words were cut short by Andrew’s gloved hand covering his mouth, Andrew’s eyes flashing in a deep, endless pit of anger for a second before going terribly blank again.

“Don’t say that word Neil.” Andrew repeated in a low voice, mist cupping the words that left his mouth. He only took his hand away when Neil nodded slowly.

Neil stared at him, trying to understand his bones and his ghosts, the things that had shaped him into what he was. He suddenly remembered long nights in front of a cup of tea, and Andrew’s soothing voice as he told Neil about abandoned children and drug addict mothers. He wondered if he would ever get the whole story, and Andrew seemed to read into his mind as he leaned back against the car, staring at the forest in front of them.

He didn’t talk until Neil joined him, keeping enough space between them to not make either one feel too crowded. “I will tell you one day. But not today. I’m here for something else.”

“Like what?”

“You.”

“What about me?” Neil felt breathless and weightless. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face what was about to come.

“I don’t have it in me to apologize, Neil.” Neil wondered why every good thing he’d ever had was always broken. His father, his mother, Riko. Maybe they’d all been right. “I don’t believe in regret. If I do something, I will accept everything that comes with it because I made the choice myself.”

Neil knew that, of course. He’d always known that Andrew always did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Hearing him say it, though, was a new kind of pain. “Are you here to tell me something I don’t know, or can we go back? It’s fucking cold outside.” Neil wanted this to end. He wanted to go back to his new apartment and hide beneath the covers until his chest stopped caving in, taking his breath away as he was thrown head first into reality.

But Andrew wasn’t done yet, his hazel eyes piercing as they stared right through him. “That said, I do wish that my actions had not resulted in your direct harm.”

That was… laughable, really. Andrew never wished for anything, and even if he did, he’d always known, since the beginning, that Neil might not make it out alive. It didn’t matter that he’d promised to keep Neil alive, and it didn’t matter that he had kept his promise, coming in at the last minute to save the day like a knight in shining armor. But Neil was not a damsel in distress. Neil had been Andrew’s human pawn, his weapon to get where he wanted to be.

Suddenly cold all over, Neil pushed himself off the side of the car, taking a couple of steps forward in agitation before stopping again, fingers combing through his auburn hair one, two, three times.

“You never want anything.” He couldn’t recognize his own voice, flat and cold as it was. He shook his head when Andrew shoot him a cool look, opening his mouth to answer. “No, Andrew. Just, no.” And Andrew understood that, horrifyingly enough, face shuttered close and teeth grinding together. “You don’t get to do this to me, Andrew. You don’t get to pretend you care. I don’t need you to be fake, I just need some peace.”

That did get the blonde’s attention. “Pretend I care.” He scoffed, scornful. “I’m not pretending I care, Neil. I’m telling you that I absolutely despise you for making me wish you hadn’t been hurt because of me.”

Neil topped short, something rearranging itself inside his mind, because that wasn’t something Andrew would say or do, was it? Neil was missing something vital. “I don’t need your pity.”  
“This is not pity, you fool.” Andrew was finally angry as well, his fist closing around Neil’s throat and mouth and inch away from the redhead’s. “I don’t believe in pity either, Neil. The world is full of sob stories, we’re not special. I am telling you that I _hate_ the fact that you are making me feel things I’m not supposed to feel anymore. This was supposed to be just a job.”

And Neil, suddenly, understood. “You _do_ care.” And it was a million-star collision, it was the end of the world and oceans rising, because for weeks he had lived in the complete conviction that he would always be expendable to Andrew, and now the man who prided himself on being untouchable was as vulnerable as Neil had ever seen him.

Andrew didn’t confirm it, because he was still Andrew Minyard, and Neil had seen the steely resolution with which he lived his life. Not even his brother, who lived with him, was privy to what went on inside Andrew’s head. But he didn’t deny it either, face smoothing out from angry to empty, walls back up in a second.

“This is not just a job anymore, is it?” Neil whispered, relieved when Andrew didn’t turn around to protect himself but just stared straight ahead.

“It hasn’t been just a job for a very long time, Neil.”  
Neil didn’t know how to find the words to tell Andrew that he wouldn’t hurt him. In the end he just sighed, settling back by Andrew’s side and thinking of every stupid choice he’d ever made, wondering if this would be one of them.

“I’m tired of fighting you, Andrew. I’m done.”

Andrew scoffed, staring straight ahead. “If this is one of your breakdowns, I don’t want it.”

Neil shook his head, resting his hand in between their bodies palm up. “I just want to start life over as Neil Josten. Will you let me?”

Andrew’s gaze fell on Neil’s hand, open in a silent question. Slowly, he reached out to place his own hand there, their fingers barely touching and their hearts fluttering with the uncertainty of what their tomorrow held. A future, a home, a key.

Hope.


	2. EPILOGUE: painted hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The happy ending they deserve

His second Gallery was very different from the first one, yellow skies and shades of reds and blacks and blues and oranges as he put his scars on papers and his heart on a canvas, wide open and bleeding for the world to see.

For _Andrew_ to see and recognize the parts of his soul that Neil had melted into his colors. He couldn’t draw his heart while leaving Andrew out of it. Not anymore. So, he drew the outline of Andrew’s shoulders in his mountains, and he painted the color of his eyes at dawn, yellow-green and a million other colors. He put pieces of Andrew in every corner of his paintings, always just at the edge of his field of vision.

Neil felt shaken and drowning, standing in the center of the room and sipping his cider, everyone’s attention switching from the scars on the paintings to the ones on his face, almost a year old and barely healed.. 

Neil realized with a pang what this might mean for him. He’d bared his soul and his past, he’d put his scars on the paper, unshielded for everyone to see, for anyone to judge. It might be the last thing the critics and the public needed to finally solve the last piece of the puzzle that had been the disappearance of Nathaniel Wesninski and Abram Hatford, who were one and the same, as well as indelible, unforgettable parts of who Neil Josten was.

Even so, there was something almost exhilarating about telling the truth, bared like an open book to the world. Neil could hear their comments, muted by the noise and by the rush of blood to his ears. They were _impressed_ by his art.

And they were scared by it too. They were scared by the black lurking under every lopsided smile in the’King’, and by the red flowers cascading down the side in the ‘Baltimore’. They were terrified by the blue and yellow scars in the ‘Nothing’.

Neil had never been prouder of his art before, but he was now as he saw people recoil in disgust at every new painting and then lean in closer, curious and trembling and eyes wide open in wonder, periodically falling on Neil’s slight figure dressed in dark grey, impressed.

The real Neil seemed to have a way of sneaking into people’s hearts when he was telling the truth.

Finally, he saw Andrew in the crowd, standing in front of the painting Neil had been the most proud of. It was the two of them, sort of; willowy figures covered in colors that told stories, back to back, a two faced creation of fiery red and warm gold. Something that some people might call a monster if they didn’t know better. It was strong, and unrelenting, surrounded by shadows and blood. Something that had survived against all odds until it became a light in the dark, a place to go, a home contoured in blue and orange lines, the shape unclear and shaded.

Andrew felt Neil approaching and scoffed. “It’s as ugly as the rest of your art.”

Neil laughed lightly. “Why are you looking at it then?”

Andrew stayed silent instead of answering with a biting retort like he usually would, their daily banter interrupted by something that looked an awful lot like feelings, open and vulnerable in the shape of Andrew’s mouth and the shadow around his softened eyes.

“It’s us.” He answered Neil’s rhetorical question calmly, gaze still firmly locked on the dark, bloody, painful mess in front of him. “We’re alive. _You’re_ alive.”

Neil nodded, staring at the painting as well. Andrew was right, they were alive. His art was alive, a lighting quick whip of color meant to break walls, cut through flesh and bone and blood until it reached the vulnerable center of a heart, pulsing with fear and panic and anger, desperate to survive.

Slowly, Neil’s hand inched towards Andrew’s own, motionless by his side. Turning to look at the blond, he let his eyes flicker towards his hand with intent, a question curving his lips and inclining his head.

Andrew answered without words, meeting Neil’s hand halfway and linking their fingers together, warm and safe, leaning against each other.


End file.
